Blizzard announces a new Global Play functionality for Battle.net to allow Diablo III players to play on servers in different regions. They also announce a new Auction House Website for the action/RPG as home to the in-game auction functionality in the action/RPG sequel. This FAQ has all the details, including how the house rake will work:

In the gold-based auction house, a 15% transaction fee will be deducted from the final sale price of a successful auction.

In the real-money auction-house, for equipment such as weapons and armor, a fixed transaction fee will be deducted from the seller for each piece of equipment successfully sold. This fee is assessed only if the item is sold. For commodities such as crafting materials, gems, gold, and other “stackable” items, a 15% transaction fee will be deducted from the total sale price.
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Note that additional fees apply for players who choose to receive the proceeds of their successful auction via PayPal™ (in regions where this option is available). See the Functionality section of this FAQ for further details.

Bhruic wrote on May 3, 2012, 23:04:Sure, but all of those things are what the cost of the game is designed to pay for. At least, traditionally speaking. When you are adding a new revenue stream, you really should only be focused on the costs that are associated with developing and supporting that stream - the other costs were always there.

I see your point but it actually goes both ways. In MOST companies you setup profit centers which in turn impact total company bottom line. It's not uncommon to have profit centers that lose money on a monthly basis that are supported by other profit centers within the same company. It would obviously be the role of the CEO or CFO to try and fix those profit centers but sometimes it just is what it is... My point is that regardless, it has to be looked at on a company level (not just project level) because the Diablo 3 'project' was obviously going to lose money over the period of development which in turn must be budgeted correctly so that the other 'profit centers' can support it's development cycle or life.

And traditionally speaking, there weren't as heavy 'ongoing' costs associated with games as there is now-a-days with online play, DLC and continued patching/improvements/tweeks. I remember years back it was unusual to have a game patched more than once or twice as a maximum.

Bhruic wrote on May 3, 2012, 23:04:Again, probably true, but I'm not sure where you are going with that. As customers, are we supposed to be happy that Blizzard is attempting to maximize their ROI at our expense? If they decided they could increase their ROI even more if they charged people $15/mth like WoW, should we all just sit back and be happy about it, because, hey, Blizzard is maximizing their ROI?

Understood... not saying we need to be happy for Bliz for hitting the ceiling on their ROI... just saying that it makes sense if you think about it from a companies perspective rather than what most people do which is demonize any entitiy that makes money other than yourself (not you specifically but people who think there is some kind of mortal sin behind companies making money). My God, look at Apple lately! Me, I'm all for companies making money which means growth so they can make more money which means they will need more people which means more jobs... It's the freaking American Dream.

The key is obviously that they don't monopolize the market where they can set the price and not have to worry about competition... Torch Light 2 has been mentioned several times here so obviously Bliz doesn't have free reign of the market and that is everyones freedom of choice to do so which keeps Blizzard honest...

remember too... the 15% isn't a mandated cost to play the game... it's an optional feature that players can opt in or out of at anytime they feel like it. Besides 70% real money back on digital content is better than 0%